Back to Berk
by Foxy'sGirl
Summary: A psychiatric ward. A boy and his imaginary dragon. A girl with battle scars. Warning: Depression and Suicide.
1. Chapter 1

"Toothless!" Hiccup thrashes, reaching towards the brilliant light of the forest through the door, the black dragon baying back at him. Sterile arms clamp around him and he thrashes, hanging onto doorframes, clawing his way back to that other world, that better world, the world with the sky and the sea and anything other than soft padded walls.

The dragon cries.

Something jabs him and he recognizes the prick of a needle, the warm spread of tranquilizer under his skin and they're _taking him away. They're taking him from Toothless._ He whirls and flails heavy legs, his teeth sinking into someone's arm. The man swears. The lights flick out.

00000

"I'm sorry about that, bud. I'm sorry." Hiccup strokes Toothless's head in the cafeteria—that's what _they_ call it—looking around for a way out. None of the windows would fit a Night Fury, anyway. "You need to get better about staying hidden. The ones in blue can _see_ you, and they don't like you."

He leans down and rests his forehead against the dragon's, stroking his friend's warm scaly chin.

"Wow." A woman's voice grabs his attention, the slam of a tray on the table. "You really are nuts."

He looks and there's a blonde around his age sitting down, eating a plastic spoonful of oatmeal and narrowing her eyes at him. She could be a Viking too, with those scars on her wrists. Battle scars.

"What do you think, bud?" Hiccup whispers to the dragon, taking in the strange young woman. Girl really.

"I think that I'm actually here," she waves at him, flashing those scars, flaunting them. "And that you're _nuts_."

"They must think you're nuts too, if they have you here," Hiccup looks away from Toothless, squaring himself in front of his untouched breakfast.

"I just tried to kill myself. You're legitimately insane."

"I'm not supposed to be here," he shakes his head. "I'm supposed to be back on Berk. I'm going to be chief someday."

"Chief of what?"

He notices her more than he notices other people. Toothless lifts his head and leans across the table, sniffing her hair. Her golden hair, shiny like Berk's gold they took from him when they caught him.

"He likes you."

"What is he?" She asks, looking around.

"Toothless is a Night Fury." Hiccup thinks about it for a second before leaning forward, wrinkling his nose at the scent of cold oatmeal. "Vikings…It's pretty rough back home. Vikings think dragons are their enemies, but they're not. Not really. They're just…horribly misunderstood. And scaly."

"And they breathe fire."

"They do." He lights up and she stares at him for a moment before her face falls. It bugs him, Toothless warbles, concerned and Hiccup rests his hand on the dragon's head. "Why are you here?"

"Things—it's rough back home for me too." She hides her scars now, pressing her wrists into the table, plastic spoon clicking against the table top.

"I already saw your scars." He swallows hard, scratching Toothless's head.

"Well, it's only fun if you get a scar out of it, right?"

"Pain," he smiles, an honest smile for the first time in weeks. The first time since he was in the sky. "Love it."

"I saw you getting taken to the panic room yesterday," she shrugs and takes another bite of her oatmeal, swallowing slowly like she doesn't really like it. He doesn't like it either. He wishes dragons liked prison food. "You're a southpaw, right?"

"Uh, these are _hands_, not paws." He shows her both hands, forgetting for half a second about the dragon that gets nervous when he's not being pet. "Are you blind _and_ crazy?"

"It means left-handed. Punch the tall blonde guard next time, he won't be expecting it from you." She points through Toothless towards the big man in scrubs, standing next to the door.

"Are you helping me escape?" He leans forward and narrows his eyes, glancing towards Toothless. The dragon licks his nose. Approval.

"I'm telling you who to punch," she shrugs again. "They won't expect it from a scrawny guy like you."

"Thank you for summing that up."


	2. Chapter 2

Astrid scowls at the nurse bringing her the pills, hiding them in her cheek like she always does, shifting them under her tongue when the nurse makes her open her mouth to check. She doesn't like the drugs, they make her cloudy and slow.

Sure, they make this place more tolerable, but she doesn't want to tolerate it. She doesn't want to forget what's going on outside, all the things she has to prove.

She walks out to the cafeteria with her hands in her pockets, grimacing at the idea of another oatmeal filled morning. Because apparently anything more flavorful would be a weapon and she'd slash her wrists again. If they were actually changing her mind, they wouldn't need to protect her from everything with a corner, would they?

Dragon boy is sitting at his usual table in the corner, petting the invisible dragon beside him, talking to it. Ever since she noticed him fighting the guards last week, he's stuck out to her. Everything he does is just a little strange.

The way he dresses, that long wool sweater and leggings, roughly stitched like he did it himself before they took all the needles away. His eyes are too wide, childishly so, glancing around the room as he whispers to his dragon. Toothless. His eyes land on her and he blinks slowly. She raises her hand in a casual wave.

His terrified expression is enough to convince her to walk over and sit down across from him, glancing at his pale hand twitching in midair.

"What's up, dragon boy?" She leans her elbows on the table and reaches across to grab a lone grape off of the corner of his tray, popping it into her mouth.

"You don't have any breakfast."

"Not in an oatmeal mood."

"I—" He pauses for a second, looking around the room with those wide eyes like someone is listening in. His hand twitches a little faster against the _dragon_. "I'm just glad that dragons don't like oatmeal. Toothless would be getting chubby off of my leftovers—oh hey, don't be so sensitive." He turns to the blank air under his arm and shakes his head. Disgusted.

"Let me guess, chubby dragons can't fly."

"Well, not very fast," he smiles and that hand in the air falters. "Why are you talking to me?"

"Why wouldn't I?" She tries to answer the question to herself. It doesn't seem fair to say 'because you looked scared of me' to a crazy person. She points over her shoulder at the only other table of teenagers in the ward. "They're all so boring, you know? It's all 'I hate my parents' and 'people at school don't like me'. It's all about who's going to hook up and avoiding the nurses to smoke their hidden pot stashes. They think they're poetic."

"1000 AD is a simpler time," he laughs. "I know what some of those things are."

"Is this…is this outfit Viking appropriate?" She waves her arm towards him and he smiles, a little bit gap-toothed.

"You just gestured to all of me."

"Do you want to get out of here?" She grins at him, a practiced grin, that grin that got countless bouncers to glance over her fake ID.

She completely forgets that they can't go anywhere until his eyes widen, shiny and obviously not ok. She wonders if he swallows his meds. He probably does.

"You know how to escape?" he whispers, that hand in the air clenching around nothing. Crushing an imaginary dragon head.

"Not…not escape." She thinks of the gas station down the street, the one she made it to that one time for food and kicks, the liquor selection in the back that ended up getting her caught. "We could…we could go out to…my _world_ for a while."

"Can Toothless come?" He's petting the air again, narrowing his eyes at her in a way that might be charmingly astute in any other situation, on any other, slightly less crazy person.

"Is he going to eat anyone?"

"He's a fish guy," dragon boy laughs. "Let's go, bud."

He stands up and pats his skinny leg, having an invisible little argument with an apparently stubborn dragon and Astrid's hopes fall in her chest.

"Can he meet us outside?" She asks, somehow desperate to make this work.

"I…" Dragon boy looks at the ground and mutters something unintelligible to Toothless. "He'll be at the front door in five minutes, we have to move before someone sees him."

00000

Dragon boy's urgency leads to cooperation and he follows Astrid quietly back to her room, changing in her doorless restroom into a pair of borrowed sweatpants and a tee-shirt that almost fits him. He can pass for normal in a pair of sunglasses she found in the yard a week ago and kept for some reason and she grabs his hand, feigning her most normal laugh and dragging him through the lobby and out the little travelled side door to the Westside parking lot.

"We've got to go meet Toothless out front," he takes off the sunglasses as soon as he can, those huge, urgent green eyes worried and screaming.

He really is crazy. Actually, certifiably crazy.

"Ok," she glances towards the few pedestrians on the front walk, a family visiting that set of twins with the pyromaniac issues.

Dragon boy ducks clumsily behind a bush and frets, "they're going to see him, someone is going to see him. I have to go get him. Vikings don't trust dragons!"

"Hey there, too loud," she claps a hand over his shoulder. He's going to get them caught. They're going to start making her pee in a cup to see if she's taking her meds, she can't have that. "Would he follow me if I went to get him?"

"They'll see him." Dragon boy shakes, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, hugging his skinny stomach.

"I'll be really sneaky." She rubs his back like her mother used to, back when her mother cared that things were bad. "Will he follow me?"

"Why can't I do it? No one notices me. No one notices me anyway, I'm _invisible_." He whispers the last word and this all seems like a bad idea.

"Hey…you're—in my world, people would be suspicious of a Viking. That's why you had to change. No one will look twice at me."

"But you're a gods-damned shield maiden." He looks at her again and she grabs the sunglasses from him, sliding them back over wild eyes.

"Trust me, ok?" She doesn't know what she's doing as she walks across the path, wishing she'd showered last night like the nurses reminded her to as she blends in with the pyromaniac twins better than their worried family.

She pauses in front of the front door and pats her leg, looking back at dragon boy peeking over the hedge at her. She gives him a thumbs up and she nods, walking back to him a little too quickly. What if the dragon doesn't follow her? What if the dragon eats her and dragon boy goes crazy?

She could have taken him, back in the day, back before they stashed her in this place and forbade her to exercise, trying to keep her weak and drugged. She's not so sure now.

"Oh hey, bud. Hey bud, you're fine. Thanks for waiting, we're here, I told you we'd meet you here." He starts stroking the dragon again and Astrid walks faster down the sidewalk until it merges with the two lane country road.

They keep crazy people in the boonies. In case someone gets out and decides to go on a murder spree or something. She sticks to the solid white line at the side of the road and heads West, almost forgetting that dragon boy is with her.

Last time she was trying to escape. This time she doesn't know.

"I can't believe he followed you," dragon boy falls into step beside her, both arms swinging unusually at his sides. The usual petting arm slaps against his hip occasionally, like he's not used to it hanging. "I knew he liked you. I knew we could trust you."

"Be careful with that whole trust thing."

He shrinks back from her words slightly and her _control_ in the situation hits her. She has his fragile little reality balanced on the tip of her tongue. She could shatter him with a word, tell him Toothless is gone and he'd be a rocking wailing thing.

He'd distract the nurses long enough for her to run to the gas station and steal one of those knives.

"So," she bites her lip, walking on the white painted line like it's a balance beam. "So, tell me more about Burp."

"Burp?" He cocks his head, gaunt jaw showing how skinny he really is. "I'm Hiccup."

"You're _Hiccup_?" She laughs, "Like that's your name? You're insane. What am I doing? You're insane."

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III." He shrugs, "great name, I know. But it's not the worst. Everyone on Berk has crazy names. Phlegma, Ack—"

"So basically bodily functions. I guess you are a _boy_ with that sense of humor. Even if you are insane." She scoffs, "I bet I'd stand out there, huh? With a name like Astrid."

"Astrid is a Viking name." He stuffs both hands in his pockets and she notices that the glasses she found are women's sunglasses. They might be making him look crazier, but she doesn't know if she can take those eyes looking straight through her in the daylight.

This is stupid.

It makes her giddy.

"Oh yeah?"

"It means Divine Beauty, it uh…it fits you." The look he gives her is so genuine, so hopeful that she doesn't know what to do with it. "We could use an Astrid on Berk. It's not a very pretty place." He looks around and smiles. "Toothless likes being outside. He's not one for containment, dragons are claustrophobic, you know."

"I didn't know that." She drifts a few feet into the road, heart racing as her feet trace summer melted tire tracks.

A car swerves around her with a honk, driving too fast and dragon boy freezes.

"I don't like those things."

"Cars?"

"They're going to hit someone. Leave them broken and bleeding at the side of the road," he frowns at a patch of air she presumes is Toothless. "That's some imagery, isn't it bud?"

"I'm not scared of a car," she spies the gas station on the horizon, lonely in a sparse field, and turns around. This could be her chance. She's not scared of cars.

She takes a few steps towards the double yellow and lays down perpendicular to it, staring up at the mostly blue sky, arms and legs spread.

"Astrid?" Dragon boy asks, his voice ringing in her ears like it'd keep echoing even if her perception cut off. Click. Lights off.

She wonders if a car tire would hurt more than the knife in her arm. Probably.

"If you want to go back to Berk, you should just do it. You're out, you must know how to get there." She knows it's cruel when she's saying it. "Stop being scared of things."

"Astrid, get up. What if a car comes?"

"What do you think I'm waiting for."

"Toothless would save you," dragon boy calls out. "He trusts you, he likes you. Once you earn a dragon's trust, they'll do anything for you."

"Toothless isn't real, _Hiccup_."

Her heartbeat is so alive in her chest and she counts every one. She wishes she knew what she was counting down from, how many more breaths she has to take. Then they'll see, then they'll all see. Hoffersons aren't cowards, Hoffersons aren't afraid of anything or anyone.

"I'll save you." His voice is clearer, like the drugs are wearing off, and she props herself up on her elbows, the asphalt digging into her skin.

He took off the sunglasses again and he's staring at her, both hands clenched in symmetrical fists at his sides.

"Even though you're afraid of cars?"

"Because I'm afraid of cars."

And it hits her, more than all those stupid therapy sessions with that idiotic, wishy-washy counselor who holds her hand and tells her that her scars are a mistake. That she deserves more than what she's had.

Maybe living is brave. Maybe she should be facing the things she's afraid of instead of death and all of its warm, flat peace.


	3. Chapter 3

Astrid's back is covered in black powder from the road as they walk into the small store. _Store_. Hiccup recognizes the word but not the thing and assumes he must have read about it somewhere in that _place_. He's out and she's right, he should be figuring out how to go back to Berk. He's an idiot, he left Toothless's saddle and tail rig back in his room, he's going to have to sneak back in and get it before he can leave.

"Don't take too much," she cautions him, ducking between rows of shelves and running her hand down bags of snacks. _Snacks_.

_He remembers getting into a _car_, outside of a red brick building, a woman who looked like him in the drivers' seat. _

'_Did it help?' She asked. _

_He nodded because she wanted him to, fretting about Toothless fitting in the tiny backseat and keeping it to himself._

"—almost got away with it last time. I don't think the security cameras work, it was trying to get alcohol that screwed me." She looks at him carefully, squinting like she's trying to see under his skin. "Are you ok?"

"I'm not the one with a death wish," he blurts, cowed when her fist knocks against his arm, slightly less than gentle.

"Shut up."

'_You have to stop this.' The chief of Berk in pajamas, in the front seat of a _car_ outside the police station. He didn't give his son time to answer, droning on and on about responsibility. Now all the words are blurred together, a big wobbly mess. _

_Bad autotune_.

"Any suggestions?" He laughs even though she's punching him, laughs because this is bizarre. He's in some otherworldly _store_ getting _snacks_ with a shieldmaiden. A shieldmaiden who doesn't realize she's trapped, a shieldmaiden with no concept of Berk.

A shieldmaiden who lays down in the middle of the road and waits for cars.

_He wanted to be crazy. He wanted to _fly_. Faster, so much faster, he barely felt the tire go. He barely noticed leaving the seat, the rush of wind through his hair, his dad running. _Running.

_Men that big shouldn't be that fast, you know? It's not fair. It's a battering ram with feet. _

_Bam. Broken and bleeding. Broken and bleeding_.

"What? Vikings don't eat twinkies?" She laughs, a sparkling sort of thing, and he notices that her shoulders are shaking, a fine, fine waterfall of black road dust tumbling down her shoulders, catching in the wrinkles of her shirt.

_Asphalt_.

_Asphalt in his hair, in his nose, digging into his skin. Bleeding, someone is bleeding._

She tosses a package with two small cakes at him and it bounces uselessly off of his chest, bouncing onto the floor. She laughs, "think fast, dragon boy."

He bends down and picks up the _snack_, reading the strange runes on the label and following her a few more steps down the aisle. She slips something into her pocket, smiling at a man behind the counter at the front of the store.

"So. If Vikings don't eat Twinkies, what do they eat?" She's shaking slightly, her hands fluttering at her sides like autumn leaves, those scars flashing at him. He wants to ask her who she was battling. If it's anyone he knows.

Being son of the chief of Berk means that he knows almost everyone in the archipelago, and he's never seen scars like those before.

"You know, the usual. Mutton, fish, a variety of tough and tasteless root vegetables." He wants his clothes back. His hand clenches around those glasses she gave him and he looks at them more closely.

_Ladies sunglasses. _

_On the counter, in the _car_. New to his life. He was sixteen, he didn't need a _mom_ to show up all of a sudden. At first it was wonderful, and she helped him sneak out, slipped him a twenty under the table. But now she's acting like she knows him, parenting him, leaving her goddamned sunglasses all over the place. _

_Like she owns the house or something. Like she owns the _car.

"Delicious. No wonder you're a twig," she slips something else into her pocket and walks into the next aisle.

"All this raw manliness?" He waves a hand towards himself and laughs, a little too pleased when she turns and smiles a shaky wide smile at him. "Who are you calling a twig?"

"Is Hiccup your real name?"

"It sucks. I know," he shakes his head. "My dad says it keeps the trolls away."

"Your dad," she pauses and looks at him, eyes crinkling meaningfully around the corners. "Chief of the Vikings."

"Chief of Berk." He corrects her, "why is that so hard to believe, by the way?"

"You don't look very chiefly."

"I don't look very much like him." Hiccup catches his reflection in a rounded mirror in the corner. Distorted and bizarre. His nose is too big and his eyes are too small, his jaw blended back into his neck like it's not even there.

_Coward._

_No one was brave enough to say it. No one would tell him that it was his fault. It was all his fault. _

_Broken and bleeding and it's all the little Hiccup's fault. The Hiccup in the great Haddock line, the scrawny kid who could never be chief because he's a coward. Coward, coward, coward. _

"Are they going to have to build you a smaller throne?" She's back to laughing, walking through the aisles slower now, like a ghost. Like she's floating. He looks down at her feet and laughs when he notices her hospital slippers, identical to his but smaller.

"Probably. If they let me be chief," he points to his chest, "not exactly Berk's finest."

"I think…I think it's strange that Berk is so horrible." She turns to him, pushing bangs away from her forehead with now steady fingers, and if he really focuses he can see her pulse throbbing underneath the thin skin of her wrist. Pushing against that scar like it's trying to get out.

"Right, and now you're going to sprout some therapist mumbo jumbo about how my fantasy world is dismal and bleak because I'm depressed and internalizing guilt I don't deserve into an undocumented psychosis and that you really want to write a paper on my messed up brain," he rattles it off and smiles at her, "I can _fly_ there. That's what no one gets. It's the sky and the freedom."

"I was going to say I think you'll be an alright chief. I like how you handle being scared." She smiles at him again, tender this time. Careful. _Accepting_.

'_This is who we are.' She looked like him and acted like him and he trusted her. He _trusted_ her. _

"And how is that?" He rubs the back of his neck and looks around, "by doing something stupid."

"You're crazy."

It's not an insult this time. Not a passing comment, not something to be brushed off. He imbibes it, still and hopeful as her steady hand lands against his forearm, squeezing for a moment before letting go. She looks back at the shelf and grins, picking up a small silver can, "what do you think? Should we get some fish for Toothless?"

"Toothless." He whispers.

Toothless.

"Whoa, we don't have to—"

"Toothless!" Hiccup shouts, his arms wrapping tight around his waist as he spins and scans the aisles for the Night Fury. Maybe he's waiting outside, the man in here would see him. The man in here would hurt him.

Vikings don't like dragons. Vikings don't like dragons.

"Hey, let's get out of here." Astrid's hand is warm on his arm, oppressive. She's going to take him back to that place, isn't she?

Oh Gods, what if he can't find Toothless this time? What if he ran away? Left like everyone else. Left Hiccup the coward who won't ever be chief, broken and bleeding on the side of the road. Broken and bleeding.

"Toothless!" He's sobbing now, wet, hot tears searing down his face. He lashes out with both arms, because maybe the dragon is invisible like everyone always says. That doesn't make him any less real if he's invisible, just harder to find. It's a good thing, if he's invisible the Vikings won't get him.

"Hey, Hiccup." Astrid is louder this time, her hands on his shoulders, and she smells like _that place_. That place with its foam walls and men in blue who don't like Toothless, who keep trying to take Toothless away. She's from that place too.

This is her world, her world with _snacks_ and _stores_.

That place is her world, part of her world. She knew the doors and to tell Toothless to wait outside and she _is_ that place. That place is her. It's in her skin and her hair.

She tried to escape through her scars but it didn't work and she's tainted now.

"Toothless!" The man at the front of the store is on the phone now and Astrid is _scared_. Not like with the _car_, she wasn't scared of the car. Her eyes are wide and fragile and her hands tighten on his shoulders.

Manacles.

Tying him down.

Keeping him grounded, keeping him out of the sky. He wants to fly. He wants to _fly_. "Come on bud. Come back. Don't do this, bud. Not now."

"Hiccup—"

"No!" He flings his arms at her and she falls back, holding the side of her face. "No! I'm not leaving him! He's going to come back, he always comes back. Toothless!" He stumbles towards the door, shoulder checking the corner of a shelf and knocking it down. Snacks go flying and Toothless wails.

He crushed him, he's under the shelf. That has to be it.

Hiccup falls to his hands and knees, ignoring the bite of broken glass and plastic into his skin, digging through the snacks. He has to be in there.

Toothless cries again, in the back of Hiccup's mind, echoing towards the door and out into this fucked up world. Astrid's fucked up world.

The wailing gets louder and the door is opening, and _no_, these men can't find Toothless before him, they just can't. Vikings kill dragons. The men grab him and try and drag him away from Toothless. He snarls and reaches out, sobbing again, yelling 'Toothless' like a prayer and waiting for someone to listen.

A sharp prick. The spreading numbness. It's dark.


	4. Chapter 4

Her face bruises, black on her cheekbone and eyebrow and blue the length of her cheek and temple, fading to green around the edges. She likes it more than she should, likes the tug and pain of her expressions that keeps her tethered and aware. They started making her pee in a cup, of course, and they upped her meds, of course. Injectable now, given every morning by a nurse forcing a smile and tacking a pink bandaid over the drop of blood.

She's not as gone as she thought she'd be.

Hiccup doesn't fare so well. They brought him back in handcuffs, sobbing and wailing like an animal, so far from the accidentally funny, sarcastic boy she saw occasional glimpses of. He's at that table in the cafeteria, both arms wrapped listlessly around his stomach as he rocks slowly, staring at an untouched tray of food. She ignores the warning look of the nurse and walks to sit next to him, straddling the bench and nudging his foot with hers.

He doesn't look up. He rocks faster.

"They told me to stay away from you," she starts, "but I don't think they'll stop me. My therapist is happy I'm connecting to someone. Even if it's someone crazier than I am."

He grumbles and shakes his head, looking at her with clouded green eyes, blinking too slowly. Robotically.

"You should probably eat, you know. It…it mellows out all the drugs if you have something in your stomach." She scoots closer to him, knees against his skinny leg as she drags his tray closer to him. "And before you ask, yes, I've been eating too. I wish Toothless could take some of that damn oatmeal off my hands."

He whines, a panicked, high-pitched noise in the back of his throat and her hand lands on his back, rubbing soothingly over skinny spine. He's not wearing her shirt anymore, and he's not in his Viking clothes anymore. The cotton is new and antiseptic and she bites her lip, reaching for his untouched spoon.

"You have to eat. If you don't eat you're going to disappear." She bumps the spoon against the hand locked into a fist against his side and he doesn't respond. "If you make me feed you, I'm going to punch you. I'll do it. Don't test me, Hiccup."

He doesn't respond. She sighs, "I can't believe I'm doing this."

He turns his head away from the spoonful of oatmeal, whining again. Astrid almost hurls the spoon across the room when a hand lands on her shoulder. It's her well meaning nurse, the one with pink band aids.

"I can do that, Astrid."

"He doesn't even want _me_ to do it, what makes you think he'd let you?" She scowls, picking up another spoonful and cradling the back of his head, guiding the cereal to his lips. He looks at her, fog shifting like it's trying to boil away and he opens his mouth, taking the bite. He swallows.

"Let me know if you want me to take over," the nurse squeezes her shoulder and she scowls at him, even though it hurts her face.

"That hurts. You should know, you gave me a shot there this morning."

"Let me know."

"Fine," she turns back to Hiccup, holding a second spoonful to his lips and smiling when he accepts it a little more readily. "See? You're going to be fine."

00000

Hiccup has a visitor. Astrid's normal dismissive jealousy is replaced with curiosity as she creeps closer to his room, pausing outside of the door and listening.

"I miss you." It's a woman's voice and Astrid edges forward, peering around the doorframe at someone who must be Hiccup's mother, holding his hands. He's not looking at her, instead fixated on a patch of blank air next to him. She hopes it's Toothless, that's fucked up, but she really hopes it's Toothless.

She's not really sure Hiccup is meant to exist without Toothless.

"I've kept your room the same, it's ready for you to come back, whenever you're ready." The woman squeezes his hands, blinking against tears in bright green eyes. Hiccup starts rocking, one corner of his mouth tugging into something halfway between a smile and a grimace.

"No dragons in the house, though."

"Exactly," his mother sobs, a wretched little laugh. "No dragons in the house, I'm glad you understand."

"He's housebroken." Hiccup insists robotically, his hand flailing for Toothless and dragging hers along with it. That whine, that broken whine.

"No dragons in the house." She insists, squeezing his hands. "And you have to stay in here, alright? You can't go exploring anymore."

"You're an explorer," he yells it, and Astrid realizes it's an insult, something trying to be snippy but coming out wrong.

"I'm waiting at home for you."

"Not my house. No dragons in the house."

"When you're ready." She's struggling and Astrid starts to feel…guilty looking in on this. She shouldn't be watching this, but she can't look away. It's comforting somehow, another train wreck of a family unfolding in front of her. "You aren't ready yet, but you will be." Her face cracks, exposed like an open wound, an emotional bruise. "Oh, my little Hiccup."

00000

Astrid is improving. Allegedly. According to the wishy washy therapist who likes to hold her hands. At the end of a week, a heavily medicated week, Hiccup is the same. Now he lets Astrid feed him though, making snarky comments in a too loud, drugged voice and eventually snatching the fork and staring at it like he expects it to do a flip.

Astrid is going home.

Well, to a halfway house, with a job at a coffee shop that the institution set up. And she still has to see her therapist, and she's still going to be _watched_. They say that they can trust her to take her own meds now, as she swallows back the horse-pills on her second to last morning behind padded bars, she thinks they might be right.

She spends the day being evaluated, which means talking to a whole lot of stodgy old shrinks she hasn't met before who ask her about her future and act like it's revolutionary when she admits she has one. She guesses it is, in a way, but it's not something she wants pointed out.

None of them will tell her about Hiccup, about how he's doing, who he is. They call her compassionate for asking, they say it's a sign of recovery.

She calls them assholes.

"You know this is my last day here, right?" Astrid asks Hiccup over dinner, he's eating by himself today as long as she keeps rubbing his back. His fingers are clumsy around the fork, like a child's, and she remembers when they were so nimble, floating in the air and stroking Toothless. He doesn't pet Toothless anymore, only talks to him, occasional snide comments under his breath.

"Right. Astrid the coffee shop employee," he nods, his eyes lighting up for a millisecond with a twitch of his mouth. "You're going to have to be nicer to customers than you are to me."

"I'm nice to you," she knocks her knuckles against his back before going back to rubbing. He's warm under her touch, heartbeat even and slow.

"I saw you spit in my gruel," he gestures towards his plate with his fork. Another smile, a little wider, a little more genuine. "But I'm not mad, it probably made it taste better."

"Astrid seasoning?"

"Astrid seasoning," he agrees. "I'll miss it, you should leave me some."

"Some spit in a bottle, that's real looney bin shit, Hiccup."

"My mom calls me Hiccup." He frowns at his lap, pushing his mostly clean plate away and blushing when he seems to finally notice her hand on him. Normally, she pulls away, today she doesn't, her palm moving in a slow circuit up and down his spine. "My dad hated it, said it was a baby nickname."

"Hiccup isn't a very chiefly name," she tells him, and some selfish little part of her almost asks about Toothless.

At least if he's here, she knows where he is. He can't get away from her. She cares more than she should.

"I'm not a very chiefly guy."

"I still think you'd be an alright chief."

"I'm sorry," he blurts, raising one shaky hand to her cheek, still green and purple. "I didn't know what I was doing."

"I know," her skin tingles under his hand and she shrugs. "It's fine. I didn't know you had such an arm."

He's silent.

He's silent as they close down the cafeteria. He's silent as they walk back to their rooms and go their separate ways. She can't take the silence as the lights along the hallway click off. As the nurses start to joke in low tones. As the moon shows up in that window, that tiny little window that she couldn't fit through that first hectic week here.

What's the worst thing they could do to her? Keep her longer? Kick her out?

She gets up and sneaks into the hallway, looking both ways before dashing down the hallway and slipping through Hiccup's open door into his room. He's sprawled out under the covers and it's surprising somehow, she'd pegged him for someone who curled up to sleep. It's nice, like maybe in his sleep he gets some relief.

It's cruel to wake him up, isn't it? It's cruel and selfish to remind him of where he is, who he is.

She hates herself for doing it anyway, resting her hand on his shoulder and whispering his name. He wakes slowly, like a kindergartner at the end of naptime, yawning helplessly and wiping his eyes with the back of a lazy hand. He sees her. He smiles.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow."

"Right." Hiccup nods, frowning and sitting up halfway. "I remember that." His eyes are clearer, this far from his medicine and she waits for him to look for Toothless. He stays locked on her like she deserves the focus.

"I thought I would stay with you."

"You did?"

"Scoot over." She bumps her leg against his, not waiting for an answer before climbing under the crispy, starched sheets. The bed is too small for two people, calling it a twin is generous and she finds herself tucked into his side, hyperaware of ribs and hips and his throbbing heartbeat.

Her head finds his shoulder and his arm wraps tentatively around her waist. There's a shuffle in the hallway, a nurse poking their head in. Astrid waits in the silence, waits to be ordered back to her room.

The silence persists.


	5. Chapter 5

Hiccup relaxes on the subway on the way to work, exhausted but glad for the early shift that gives him half an hour of silence on his commute. The train car is nearly empty, but for an old woman reading a newspaper at the other end. He shakes his head and tries to refocus on his book with groggy eyes.

Reading is good. He needs other worlds but is better off not creating them himself.

Something about this morning though, dragons and knights just aren't drawing him in like they normally do. There's something in the air, that late fall dryness when rain turns to snow and it's making him antsy. He's looking around corners again and it makes him nervous, like a big, black dragon is going to slink out of the woodwork and ruin everything.

He's like an alcoholic, but there's no Toothless anonymous.

The train slides to a stop and the doors open at an empty station, cool air rushing through the gap and making Hiccup curl his feet closer to the heating vent underneath his seat. There should be some sort of occupancy sensor or something, the doors don't need to open when there's nobody there.

A young blonde woman dashes through the gap at the last moment, shivering and swearing before slipping surely frozen feet back into demure heels. She stays standing even though most of the car is empty, checking her reflection in the door glass and fiddling with her hair. The back of her head looks familiar, and Hiccup tries to squash that particularly insane thought, flipping through his book to see how many pages he has left in this chapter.

Of course the back of her head looks familiar. All backs of heads look the same.

He glances up at her, frowning at the familiar set of her shoulders. Maybe he imagined her at some point, her or someone like her. It's happened before, random hostilities towards random people in half-way houses and trade school. She's probably just something he dreamt but doesn't quite remember.

She shivers, shifting between her feet and crossing her arms over her chest. Her clothes are new but don't fit quite right, skirt baggier than it should be, like she's trying to hide still obvious petite curves. His eyes linger a second too long on the gentle swoop of her tight clad calves.

Her shoes aren't slippers.

What?

Of course she's not wearing slippers, she's commuting. Obviously to some office or something.

She shivers again, hugging the pole nearest the door and wrapping her coat more tightly around herself, giving away a narrow waist that he wonders about touching. His fingers curl around his book and he can smell shitty, antiseptic shampoo that came out of bottles without labels in showers without curtains.

He should get off at the next station. This isn't healthy, he hasn't reeled like this in years, since he picked up those convenience store Twinkies on the way home from work and forgot how to pay the cashier.

"_Vikings don't eat Twinkies?"_

The voice is so clear, so startlingly clear in his memory that he freezes, paper tearing under his fingers. This is bad, this is all so bad. He stands up and throws his book indiscriminately into his bag, walking too fast and too clumsy towards the far doors in the car. The train turns, he stumbles, catching himself on _her_ pole inches above her hand.

She turns and glares at him.

His heart stops and lurches back to life almost painfully, making up for lost time.

"Astrid."

Her glare softens to slack jawed confusion for a moment and he wonders if he has the wrong person. If this is the beginning of the downward spiral and she's not even blonde. He's probably mooning over some business man, calling them Astrid and earning his ticket back to padded walls.

She's probably not even here, he's probably flirting with a pole like a crazy homeless person.

She smiles.

"Hiccup?" She throws her arms around his neck and squeezes too tightly, painful enough that this must be _real_.

"Astrid," he repeats, holding more tightly to the pole and holding them both up as the train turns again. She smells different than he remembers, but the same, clean and sweet and so familiar he can't believe he hasn't spent the last six years missing her. "You don't have to choke me, I'm not trying to get away."

She punches his arm.

"Ouch!"

"That's for being so hard to find. I didn't even have a real name—"

"You looked for me?" He smiles and it's so normal, so comfortable on his face. She tried to look for him.

"Of course I did." She rolls her eyes at him and fumbles in her purse, shoving a cell phone into his hand. "Phone number. Before anything else, you're not getting away again."

He stares at the phone for a second before entering his phone number into a new contact. She takes the phone back with a smile, tucking it into her jacket pocket and _looking_ at him. Those blue eyes crinkling like he can't believe he forgot.

"You—are you still crazy?" She asks, indelicate as he suddenly remembers her.

"Are you?"

"I wasn't ever really crazy," she shakes her head, her hand clamped around his arm too tight, like he really is trying to get away. "I was just sad."

"Are you still sad?"

She pushes her hair behind her ear, sleeve sagging on her arm and revealing a half inch of faded, shiny scar. He knows that it's polite to pretend he didn't see, but he can't, because it's still a battle scar. He catches her hand in his and runs his thumb over the spot before dropping her like she burned him.

She's _prettier_ than he remembers.

"I'm alright," she nods. "Are you—"

"Still crazy?" He smirks, stepping back slightly to give himself breathing room, doing his best to ignore her grip on his arm. "I'm alright too. I—honestly, I thought I was hallucinating when I saw you. I recognized the back of your head."

"Creepy," she's smiling, looking at him hopefully. "You're—This isn't some ill-conceived escape attempt, is it? You're really…"

"I'm on my way to work," he flushes and looks away from her. "I tie my own shoes and everything."

"Where do you work?"

"I'm a machinist at a factory out on the shitty side of town. I weld, occasionally." He smiles at her, testing the waters, "Fire-breathing just feels right."

"You're the same." She lets go of his arm, rubbing it for a moment like she knows she was excessively enthusiastic. "Not—you're better, obviously. But you're the same."

"Well, you already hit me once and bruised my arm, so I guess I could say that you're the same too." He frowns, staring at her shoes that definitely aren't slippers. "From what I remember."

"Let's jog your memory," she knocks impossibly gentle knuckles against his arm, on top of that still singing bruise from her tight grip. "I get off of work at three, come over. We can catch up."

"I'm not…I'm not totally sure this _isn't_ a hallucination." He laughs as the train skids to a stop, her hand grabbing the pole for balance as her purse clinks against his bag.

She takes advantage of the proximity, popping onto tip toes and ghosting her lips across his cheek, too warm and barely there. A faded memory of a too small twin mattress, 'dragon boy' in his ear and Astrid's arm across his chest.

"This is my stop. I'll text you my address, alright." She jabs him in the chest with a firm finger, walking backwards towards the opening door. "And if you don't show, Hiccup…"

"I'll regret it forever?" He laughs, rubbing his head, searching his brain for something telling him this isn't right and finding nothing.

"I'll hunt you down." She finishes the thought through the closing door, bright blue eyes locked on his like an anchor.

He believes her.


End file.
